Four creative methods for engagement in training — from trainingjournal.com by Susan Tomlinson Schmidt

Excerpt:

Educational courses are one of the most often sought-after and impactful professional development opportunities that people can engage with, so it’s vital that you keep your audience engaged even once they’ve started coursework. Here are our four tips for success.

  1. Leverage several media strategies.
  2. Keep learning modules short.
  3. Provide relevant examples for educational concepts.
  4. Communicate the purpose of knowledge checks.

Although we’re specifically discussing online educational opportunities in this guide, the ideas behind these concepts speak to other training opportunities you provide as well.

 

AirTags Are the Perfectly Boring, Functional Future of AR — from wired.com by Lauren Goode
Apple’s new location-aware widgets point to the company’s possible larger ambitions for augmented reality.

Excerpts:

APPLE’S AIRTAGS HAVE found their way to market. The long-rumored competitor to Tile—a tiny Bluetooth tag you attach to frequently lost items—was unveiled today during Apple’s spring hardware announcement.

This latter feature points to another emerging platform for Apple: augmented reality. While the company didn’t explicitly say AirTags will be used in AR apps, immersive computing experts point out that the AirTags technology is using ARKit, Apple’s software framework for AR, and that tying digital information to nearby physical objects is an important step in the evolution of this tech.

Instead of seeing a flat, 2D image on your iPhone of where the keys are buried in the couch, a virtual arrow would be layered on top of the view through your phone’s camera, guiding you to the exact location of your keys as you move closer.

 

 7 Things You Didn’t Know PowerPoint Could Do That Will Make Your Next Presentation POP! — from Dr. Echo Rivera; posted 4/20/21

Excerpt:

I’m going to show you more than 7 Powerpoint features, but I’ve broken them down into 7 categories.

Here are those seven categories:

  1. Accessibility
  2. Photo Editing
  3. Interactivity
  4. Animations
  5. Custom Visuals
  6. Data Visualization
  7. Saving Time
 

3 Tech Trends Shaping the Future of Post-Pandemic Teaching and Learning — from campustechnology.com by Rhea Kelly
The landscape of higher education has been transformed by COVID-19, and that impact is a major factor in the 2021 Educause Horizon Report. Here are three key technology trends to watch as the lasting effects of the pandemic play out.

Excerpt:

What’s in store for higher education’s post-pandemic future? The latest Educause Horizon Report has identified the trends, technologies and practices shaping teaching and learning in the wake of COVID-19. The potential lasting effects of the pandemic “loomed large” in the trend selection this year, the report stated, emphasizing that although it remains to be seen whether the transformations of the past year will persist into the future, “it isn’t hard to imagine that higher education may never be the same in some important ways (good or bad).”

In the realm of technology in particular, it’s clear that the pandemic-induced shift to remote learning has dominated the trend landscape. The top three technological trends identified by the report are…

From 2021 EDUCAUSE Horizon Report® | Teaching and Learning Edition

This image relays some of the key technologies and practices such as AI, blended learning, learning analystics, OER, and others

Also see:

Jessica Rowland Williams, director of Every Learner Everywhere, agreed. “The pandemic has given us the unique opportunity to pause and listen to each other, and we are beginning to discover all the ways our experiences overlap,” she said.

 

The Pandemic May Have Permanently Altered Campuses. Here’s How. — from chronicle.com by Francie Diep
Trends accelerated by Covid-19 may make more sense than ever in the future, experts say.

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Although they were not required to meet in person, students liked to do so anyway. They organized meet-ups in cities including San Francisco, Austin, and Bangalore. They formed groups like Nerdy Bones, for women, who made up 19 percent of the students in the fall of 2020. Administrators found that as many as 80 percent of the U.S.-based students in each cohort lived within a two-hour drive of one of 10 major population centers. That gave the administrators an idea: Build co-working spaces in those cities, where online students could work and meet one another. Each space, called an atrium, would have career and advising services too.

From DSC:
I haven’t heard that term used like this before — atrium. I’ve been thinking about this in terms of learning hubs…but the idea is the same. Nontraditional learning spaces.

 

Unbundled law firms find success offering virtual legal services — from abajournal.com by Lyle Moran; with thanks to Gabe Teninbaum for this resource

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

The Law Shop by Skogerson McGinn in Van Meter, Iowa, provides unbundled legal services, which means it helps clients with specific legal tasks rather than assisting them with their entire cases or matters.

In the family law realm, its unbundled offerings include coaching self-represented litigants on filling out divorce forms and preparing child support worksheets.

By emphasizing this nontraditional approach, also known as limited-scope representation, The Law Shop has attracted inquiries from consumers across the state seeking affordable legal assistance.

 

How Work Changed for Good in 2020, According to Employers — from stradaeducation.org by Patty Reinert Mason
Recruiting, hiring, and training improvements are here to stay, employer survey says

Excerpt:

Sparks and several other employers who shared their 2020 experiences in the webinar said the pandemic and a nationwide reckoning on racial inequities, while devastating, also expedited significant improvements in the workplace. Changes in recruiting, hiring, and training employees, efforts to upskill existing workers, and improvements in coaching executives are building a more diverse, inclusive, supportive workplace, they said, and most of those changes will be permanent.

The employers were among more than 300 in health care, food service, manufacturing, and retail surveyed by UpSkill America to understand how businesses were learning and adapting. The research was funded by Strada Education Network and Walmart.org.

 

“Endurance is essential” – Flat 70’s fight to support Black visual artists — from itsnicethat.com by Jenny Brewer
Siblings Anthony and Senam Badu founded the non-profit after they lost their home to the regeneration of the Aylesbury Estate, wanting to support and save space for its community.

A New Angle is an editorial series that aims to give a platform to creative industry changemakers who make it their mission to disrupt the status quo. Each week we’ll chat to a person or team doing important work in the sector, making it a fairer place, championing vital causes, supporting underrepresented groups and tackling pertinent issues facing creatives everywhere.

This week we hear from siblings Senam and Anthony Badu, who in February 2020 saw their Aylesbury Estate home demolished and, that very same month, set up non-profit arts organisation Flat 70. They saved the door number from the flat and attached it to the front of their new arts space, symbolic of a phoenix rising from the ashes, and a constant reminder of their mission to support and save their community from being repeatedly “devalued, erased or co-opted”.

A picture of two black children dressed up in colorful clothes

 

Panopto Acquires Ensemble Video — from businesswire.com
Panopto acquires Ensemble Video to meet increasing demand for video intelligence

SEATTLE–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Panopto, the leading video management system provider, today announced that it has completed its acquisition of Ensemble Video, makers of video management software for K-12, higher education, and enterprises. This investment will enable hundreds of new customers to use Panopto, expanding the company’s ability to meet the demands of K-12 educators and strengthening its world class engineering team.

Also see:

 

Udemy, an Online Course Platform Where Anyone Can Teach, Keeps Raising Money. What’s Next? — from edsurge.com by Jeffrey R. Young

Excerpt:

Udemy has become one of the best-funded companies in edtech, having raised another $80 million at the end of 2020 bringing its total raised to nearly $300 million. So, what are its plans, and how does it see the market for online courses changing after the pandemic?

Those were some questions we brought to Udemy’s CEO, Gregg Coccari, in a recent interview.

“They become professional at this,” he says. “They have assistants that handle the questions. They work at this every day. They’re always looking for new publishing ideas, more courses, they’re upgrading the courses they have. And so these become very professional online teachers.”

But those millionaires are, by and large, the exception.

 

Walmart is pulling plug on more robots — from wsj.com by Sarah Nassauer
Retailer has been phasing out automated pickup towers as curbside services have become popular

Excerpt:

At Walmart Inc., the robots are losing their jobs.

The retailer is phasing out the hulking automated pickup towers that were erected in more than 1,500 stores to dispense online orders. The decision reflects a growing focus on curbside pickup services that have become more popular during the Covid-19 pandemic and continues a broader retreat from some initiatives to use highly visible automation in stores.

 

Law Society votes to approve regulatory sandbox for innovative legal tech development — from lawtimesnews.com by Aidan Macnab

Excerpt:

At Convocation Thursday morning, the Law Society of Ontario passed a motion to launch a five-year regulatory sandbox pilot for innovative legal tech services.

The initiative recommended by the Law Society’s technology task force would open up a regulatory safe zone for innovative technological legal services. Participants will report to and be monitored by the Law Society, which will study the sandbox to inform policy and regulatory decision-making.

Rocket Lawyer Raises $223 Million To Meet Growing Demand For Its Services — from lawsitesblog.com by Bob Ambrogi

Excerpt:

The online legal services provider Rocket Lawyer has raised $223 million in growth capital financing to help it meet what it says has been a strong and accelerating demand for its digital legal documents and advice.

Legal technology start-up JUSTLAW notches an impressive milestone — from einnews.com
Small business legal protection offering experiences rapid growth.

Excerpt:

NEW YORK, NY, UNITED STATES, April 13, 2021 /EINPresswire.com/ — Launched in 2020 in the face of the worst pandemic in a century, legal tech startup JUSTLAW set out with the lofty vision to give ordinary Americans access to top attorneys on a 24/7 basis. It’s working. The number of small businesses enrolled in its small business legal protection plan just surpassed 1,000.

 

Design full rooms in AR with the IKEA Studio app — from vrscout.com by Kyle Melnick

Use the IKEA Studio app to design a room -- this image pictures a floating blue couch in a living room

Excerpt:

Whereas the IKEA Place app—released back in 2017 alongside the launch of Apple’s ARKit—allows you to place single pieces of AR furniture and decorations throughout your real-world environment, IKEA Studio lets you furnish entire rooms. Developed by IKEA’s own Copenhagen-based studio SPACE10, this iOS-exclusive app works by capturing 3D room plans and measurements using the LiDAR sensors featured on the iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max. Put simply, this new technology generates a mesh scale capable of identifying surfaces, objects, and the geometry of your real-world environment, resulting in more realistic AR experiences.

 

The art of the pivot — from chieflearningofficer.com by Jay Campbell and Doug Glener
Try these four tactics the next time you have to change direction.

Excerpt:

The ”first pancake” metaphor — a test to see if the batter and heat are just right — is an example of framing. The results are informative, but not pretty. Framing an experiment as a first pancake lowers the stress and pressure while simultaneously making the experiment fun and playful. Leaders who successfully frame a situation can shift people’s attitudes about even the most intimidating changes.

Supporting healthier minds through learning and development — from chieflearningofficer.com by Elizabeth Loutfi
L&D teams have helped to alleviate some of the stress and anxieties people are feeling as their organizations grapple with pandemic-related changes and challenges.

Meet the CLO Advisory Board: Bob Mosher — from chieflearningofficer.com by Elizabeth Loutfi
Meet longtime CLO advisory board member Bob Mosher, CEO and chief learning evangelist for APPLY Synergies.

CLO: What lessons did you learn back in 2020 that you’ve taken with you into 2021?
For me, it’s the art of listening. As educators, we’re supposed to have answers and we’re supposed to be the owners of content and the developers of programs. We get help from the business, but we’re very locked in our ways. Understandably so, but all of our ways were thrown out last year. My instinct, and many, was to rush to solution, rush to help. That was fairly humbling for me. It was a year to reflect and sit back and examine my commitment to things over doing the right thing. It taught me that — which L&D should do well anyway, but when you get senior like me and you’ve done it a bunch of times — you guess people’s right answer, or think you can. Because there was no normal and we weren’t making courses like we always used to, it was a year of reflection and listening for me to kind of rekindle that skill.

5 ways to foster a learning culture — from chieflearningofficer.com by Jonathan Finkelstein
By placing importance on growth at all levels of the organization, you can foster a learning culture that serves your people and helps your business grow.

 

How to Learn Animation At Home: Beginner’s Guide to Online Courses, Software and Resources — from graphicmama.com by Al Boicheva

Excerpt:

On the bright side of the current reality, it’s the perfect time to be productive and learn new skills. Why not trying to learn animation? If this is something you’ve always been interested in and would like to try, it’s not necessary to do it the traditional way and study it at a university. In fact, you can do it online in the comfort of your home.

So, what are the options to become a self-taught animation designer? Let’s walk through the process together.

 
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